October 2009

Look for the good – in yourself and all around you. Positive thinking may not be a panacea, but it is the most basic way we have to cooperate with benevolence. – Victoria Moran

There are two reasons that I am excited to share with you another wonderful chapter from Victoria Moran’s amazing little book Creating a Charmed Life:

1) It allows me to give you great value while saving myself about half a day’s writing, as I must attend to some important personal matters this weekend.

2) It provides a beautiful lead-in to this month’s Create Prosperity Now tele-class that I am in the midst of preparing, which teaches you a very powerful technique for ensuring that the Universe delivers only its very BEST to you.

Victoria and I are so much on the same wavelength, it is as much a pleasure for me to share her thoughts and suggestions with you, as it is to share my own. I hope you enjoy this chapter and that you will take a moment to actually DO her suggested exercise. It has an effect similar to keeping a Gratitude Journal, but even more powerful!

Creating a Charmed Life, Chapter 49:

Cooperate With Benevolence

By Victoria Moran

It doesn’t take any more time to think in a way that makes your life better than it does to think in a way that makes your life miserable. People whose inner spirit spills over into their lives in the real world look for the good, and their days flow smoothly most of the time. When you ask how they are and they tell you they’re fine, they mean it. This isn’t the kind of positive thinking that’s regimented and enforced, but simply a nod to the good given often enough that it becomes natural.

We tend to get what we look for. But just as it’s easier to let our bodies sag than to exercise consistently, it’s easier to let our thinking slump into negativity than to jog it up to something better. Some will even argue that there are certain benefits to awaiting doomsday: if it doesn’t happen, you get to feel terrific. There’s also a kind of superstition around expecting something awful and somehow willing the dreaded event away. You could think of it as prophylactic worry.

Nevertheless, truly spiritual people and truly happy people (those particular demographic groups tend to overlap) expect the best to the point of annoying everyone else. It’s even more annoying when marvelous things keep happening for them, which they generally do. The point is to learn how to be just as annoying as they are.

From a purely mathematical viewpoint, you’re better off expecting a positive outcome, because that’s what usually happens. Life has a vested interest in perpetuating itself. Therefore, it tends to come through for its participants the majority of the time. This is not to deny the existence of delay, disappointment, loss and sadness. Even these, however, when you can stand apart and view them in retrospect, are often part of a progression toward greater good.

Help yourself get comfortable with expecting the good by making a positive precedents time line. Go back over your life and bring to mind your successes, your growth spurts, and your victories. List them. Stick with events you remember, not those that you were told. How far back you’re able to go isn’t important. The abridged time line of a fifty year old might include the following: “Age 4: wrote name. Age 7: rode two-wheeler. Age 12: sang solo in group assembly. Age 17: won scholarship. Age 28: stopped drinking. Age 31: son born. Age 42: master’s degree. Age 50: silver wedding anniversary.”

A positive precedents time line is visual evidence of both your capabilities and life’s generosity. It’s human nature to focus on the ways we’ve fallen short and extrapolate from these evidence for continued failure. Realizing that we have set some extremely positive precedents is solid backing for thinking well of the future.

Look for the good – in yourself and all around you. Positive thinking may not be a panacea, but it is the most basic way we have to cooperate with benevolence.

____________________________________________________________________

Don’t miss my “Fall into Prosperity” special for the month of October! You can have a specific dream come true, often in 30 days or less — 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back! I’ve helped over 150 clients so far to get what they want using my patented Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) system, and I know I can help you, too! But you must call or email me by October 31 to schedule a F.R.E.E. no-obligation phone consultation.

Once we determine what your specific 30-day goal is, we can decide together whether Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) can help you get it!

And if you contact meby the end of this month, you can have private, one-on-one coaching at LESS than half of my normal coaching fee!

This great offer won’t be repeated this year, so don’t delay! Contact me for all the details and to schedule a complimentary consultation: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com or toll free (888) 503-8145.

If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on October 28 to learn “How to Get The Best in Life.” Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links.

“In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.” – Friedrich Schlegel

The highlight of my week was an eye-opening email exchange with one of my relatives, a young man in his mid-twenties. He just got married a few weeks ago and right after he returned from his honeymoon, he wrote to explain to me and other close friends and family about the serious financial circumstances he and his new bride were facing.

Being a very independent, intelligent and resourceful young man, he hated to have to admit that he was in a difficult situation and to ask us for help, even though it came about through no fault of his own. Unbeknownst to me, he was fired from his job seven months ago, and had been struggling ever since to find work. This wasn’t the result of the poor economy, although the big retail chain he worked for was certainly feeling the pinch. What happened was that his store had been the victim of a series of employee thefts that were clearly an “inside job.” Although it had been going on for some time, store security had been unable to catch the thieves, who clearly had access to the building late at night.

According to this young man, his supervisor was under a lot of pressure because the store was performing very poorly anyway, and with the added losses from the thefts, she was afraid for her own job. She felt that she had to do something to save herself, so she identified the person carrying a television out of the store on a grainy, dark surveillance tape as my relative, because she said she recognized his “walk.”

Based on no more evidence than that, he was arrested at his home that night. The next morning, after he was able to call a lawyer, the charges were dropped because there was absolutely no other evidence to substantiate his supervisor’s flimsy “identification” of him. Nevertheless, the retail chain fired him for “employee theft.” He resides in a state where an employer can fire you for any reason, so his only recourse to fighting for his job would be to go through a long and expensive legal process, for which he did not have the money nor the temperament. He simply didn’t want to waste any more of his precious time and energy fighting back against the injustice, but chose instead to focus on finding another job.

Even in this economy, with his skills and winning personality, he received several good job offers. However, all were rescinded when background checks by his prospective employers showed that he had been arrested for theft. (Apparently, an arrest, even one where all charges are ultimately dropped, remains on one’s record in his state. I find that appalling, but that’s what’s so.) To make matters worse, he couldn’t collect unemployment because of the reason given for his termination.

I know this young man well enough to believe him 100%. He has completed two years of law school and knows that the odds of fighting this and winning without incurring massive debt were very slim. I respected him for maintaining a positive focus, holding his head up and simply going forward with his life, rather than wallowing in anger or self-pity. But I honestly couldn’t understand why the Universe wasn’t supporting his intention to find a new job. He and his wife were not making it on her salary alone, for a reason for that was entirely unjust. He was innocent, so why was this happening to such a good person? I just couldn’t accept that this was the way that the Law of Attraction appeared to be working.

It is one of my fundamental beliefs that 100% of what happens to us is ultimately for our personal Highest Good. Certainly, bad things DO happen to good people every day. It may feel awful to go through it at the time, but in the end, such tragedies always produce some important inner growth and development that strengthens us and makes us wiser, more resilient, and often materially better off than we were before. The biblical story of Job is all about that. According to the tale, God allowed Job to be put through unspeakable hardships to prove to Satan that his faithful servant Job would never renounce Him. And Job never did. While others mocked him, he clung to his faith that God would ultimately save him from every ill that had befallen him. When he passed the faith “test,” God elevated him far beyond the life that had been taken from him, and gave him honor and riches beyond what he had ever hoped to possess.

I believe the story of Job is meant to teach us that when we have faith in divine laws and believe in our heartfelt desires, the Universe ALWAYS supports us. The help we receive may not appear immediately, because our timing is not always Divine timing, but it DOES eventually appear. The apparent delay may well be due to the Universe moving many intricate, interconnecting pieces of the “How” into place – all the people and resources needed to deliver our heart’s desire in the best possible way for our Highest Good. And once all the pieces are aligned, we often get a lavish surprise when we least expect it, delivered in a bigger and better way than we had ever dared imagine for ourselves.

My young relative had already recounted the circumstances of his current situation to me several weeks ago, but the “twist” that I learned just a couple of days ago, was a startling revelation that made his whole Job-like situation make sense to me for the first time.

His recent email said,“I’ve been butting my head up against this job thing for 7 months now. It’s interesting that four different people have told me at various times through the last 7 months, including my wife and mother, that they’ve felt in prayer that perhaps God’s plan isn’t for me to get another job, but to throw myself into full-time ministry. It’s tough because I know we have bills that aren’t getting paid and we can’t stay afloat on just my wife’s income, but mom said something to me the other day that struck me. She said, ‘sometimes God’s provision doesn’t come until we fully commit.’ I’ve been waiting for God to work things out so I can be secure in going into full-time ministry, but that would require no faith, so perhaps what I am supposed to be doing is just taking the step of faith. I would love not to have to get another regular job and just be able to put all of myself into the ministry He has called me to and put in my heart, but it’s a big decision.”

Bingo! That’s the moment when it hit me that my beloved relative’s situation was NOT caused by cosmic injustice or some sort of fluke in the Law of Attraction. Instead, I believe that his situation is the opportunity for manifesting his Highest Good that the Universe has been trying to deliver to him for seven months, only he hasn’t been catching the signals! He has fervently wanted in his heart of hearts to go full-time into purposeful work that he feels called to do, that lights him up and that many others say is perfect for him. His only mistake has been trying to follow his OWN limited-view plan for how it should unfold.

I think his mom nailed it: The Universe only delivers the means when it knows for sure that we are COMMITTED to our goal. As my favorite Master Manifester, Edwene Gaines, says, “When you put yourself in a position so the only way you are going to get through it is by going FORWARD, with no “back door” escape route, only then does God know that you are 100% COMMITTED.” Only then do the unlimited forces of the Universe come out to support you and give you everything you need to complete your Divine assignment.

I haven’t yet heard the end of this story from him, but I am pretty sure that his further prayer and the support of his family will give him the faith he needs to commit 100% to what he knows is right for him. He must simply give up worrying about HOW it will happen. Remember, the “How” is none of your business! How your good comes to you is up to the Universe. Your job is simply to say, “Yes!” and to be open and receptive to the Universe’s specific instructions as they begin to appear.

What are YOU secretly wishing you could be doing or having? Do you spend every day doing something that lights you up and fulfills you? Or are you doing things that bore you just to pay the bills? Do you feel that there is no way for you to have and do what you are REALLY meant for?

Well, I believe that if you are truly 100% committed to having what you want, you must prove it to yourself and to the Universe. You must take one specific ACTION that demonstrates your commitment, and then stand back and watch as the Universe begins to support you in moving forward with it.

You alone must decide what the appropriate action for YOU to take is; it might not be responsible to others involved if you simply quit your day job tomorrow. But if you will take one specific step toward your dream in faith, without knowing in advance just HOW it will work out, the Law of Attraction will respond, and limitless forces will surely come to your aid in miraculous ways you cannot now begin to imagine.

Don’t miss my “Fall into Prosperity” special for the month of October! You can have a specific dream come true, often in 30 days or less — 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back! I’ve helped over 150 clients so far to get what they want using my patented Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) system, and I know I can help you, too!

But you must call or email me by October 31 to schedule a F.R.E.E. no-obligation phone consultation. Once I know what your 30-day goal is, we can decide together whether Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) can help you get it! And if you contact me by the end of this month, you can have private, one-on-one coaching at LESS than half of my normal coaching fee!

This great offer won’t be repeated this year, so don’t delay! Contact me for all the details and to schedule a complimentary consultation: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com or toll free (888) 503-8145.

While I realize summer is officially over, I must give you one more taste of Victoria Moran’s wisdom because this topic is one that is especially close to my heart: Miracles. I am a huge believer in them as a part of daily life, and I can honestly say that hardly a week goes by when I don’t experience at least one miracle myself, as well as getting reports about their miraculous experiences from my clients.

What follows next is “Allow for Miracles,” Chapter 69 of Victoria Moran’s wonderful little book, Creating a Charmed Life, in which she tells you how to nurture more miracles to appear in your daily life:

The word miracle is unpopular with many pragmatic people. It conjures up the notion of some event that can have no rational explanation or, as one of my friends put it, “‘Miracle” sounds like a TV preacher asking for money.” It’s the word I need to use here anyway: miracle, according to Webster’s second definition, [is] “evidence of Divine power in human affairs.”

When you look at miracles in this way, you can see that we are swimming in a sea of them. Being in the right place at the right time, having precisely the item or the information you need, running into just the person who can help you solve a problem – you can see all these instances as “evidence of Divine power.” When you notice these events for a time, you come to expect them. Once you expect them, they show up like stepping-stones along your path. People might comment on how lucky you seem to be, on how things so often work out well for you.

The three-part process for bringing such miracle into your life is this:

Look for evidence of divine power in your daily affairs.

Invite more of it in.

Be a catalyst for this power in other people’s lives.

To look for indications of divine power, avoid taking things for granted. Really look at what you see – in nature, in people’s faces, in human creations of art and technology. Don’t get too sophisticated to be frequently amazed. You don’t have to verbalize juvenile exclamations like “Wow!” and “Awesome!” but think them all you want.

Invite more divine power into your material world by expecting the best and doing the necessary footwork to birth those expectations. Act as if what you want were probable (refer back to Secret 34, “Study Method Acting”*), and allow for the possibility that the true miracle may lie in an alternative outcome.

You can also lure miracles – or serendipity or right results; you can call them whatever you like – by speaking positively. Use words that are hospitable to whatever mobile miracle might be passing by. Even in something as insignificant as seeking a parking space, you may as well help on some level by saying, “I tend to find really good parking spaces” instead of “With all this construction, we’ll never find a place to park.”

(A fascinating aside here is that if you use the first statement and park three blocks from where you’re going, you’re likely to think, “This is great – only three blocks from the door.” If you use the second, you’re apt to complain, “Three whole blocks – as usual! I ought to keep hiking boots in the trunk.”)

Finally, be a stimulus for other people’s miracles. Encourage them to see their potential and life’s potential. Remind them of the evidence of divine power you see in their lives already. Be a miracle provider by putting your own energy and generosity to work on another’s behalf. And continue to allow for miracles, both minor and momentous, in your own life. That’s how you show evidence of what can be.

Well, I would say that Victoria Moran’s final paragraph in this little gem of an essay is what I consider to be my true job description. One of the affirmations I say aloud every day to prepare for my own daily miracles is, “As I bless others, so shall I be blessed.” And when I say “bless,” I mean exactly what Victoria described – I want to assist you in any way I can to nurture your belief that you really CAN co-create miracles in your daily life! When I can be of service to you in this way, I know that the Law of Reciprocity will certainly make miracles show up regularly in my life, too!

One of these miracles in my own life happened just this week. My husband and I needed to hire an attorney to help us with some complicated paperwork, and the fee for his services was in the four figures. (He gave us a $200 discount, however, which is something of a miracle in and of itself!) This lump sum was NOT in our budget planning for the month, so we put down a small deposit and went home to seek “divine power” to assist us with creating the rest of the money.

The next morning, while I was on my walking meditation, silently repeating the mantra, “God alone fills every need,” it suddenly came into my head that my safe deposit box held two gold coins that I had purchased as an investment over 20 years ago. While I was vaguely aware that the price of gold has shot up since I bought them, I hadn’t thought about them for a long time. When I got home, I decided to call a precious metals buyer and seller to find out what they were worth. The very next day, I was standing in his shop, happily watching him count out a large stack of $100 bills that very nearly covered the balance due to the attorney.

If that isn’t a miracle – “evidence of Divine power” in my daily affairs – I don’t know what would qualify. I find it amazing, extraordinary and unexpected that I still had these coins in my safe deposit box after all these years, and that they just “popped” into my consciousness exactly when I needed a special resource to meet my unexpected need. I guess my mantra was right, after all!

If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on October 28 for the next one.Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links.